Sunday, August 10, 2008

Wedding Crashing

Thank you Patricia Robertson. You gave me the book review in the Globe and Mail that every writer dreams of...but as importantly you inspired me to do a little wedding crashing this weekend.

I was at my cousin's wedding Saturday night at Winnipeg's wedding central The Fort Gary Hotel. The beauty about this majestic joint is that there are always three other nuptial parties going on besides the one that you are attending.

In her review of my book, Patricia reminisced about wedding crashing in her Winnipeg days, which in turn inspired me to, along with my good sport of a brother, check out the other weddings at the hotel.

We congratulated two different brides on their beautiful dresses and thanked them profusely for inviting us to share their day with them. The first bride looked horrified and confused, mentally flipping through her invitation roladex, trying to figure out who the hell we were. We grabbed a quick drink and split as she seemed to be one of those stressed out brides who might actually know everyone who she invited to her hitching party. The free drinks would have been a nice bonus if we weren't already getting free booze and sausage at my cousin's wedding downstairs.

At the second reception, Alanah, who was marrying Constantime, said she was thrilled that we could share her special day with her. She was half in the bag and having a grand time; she even posed for a photo with us. I will post this tomorrow when I'm not so sleepy.

This isn't an orignal activity and Vince Vaughan made it look way cooler in The Wedding Crashers - but it's damn fun. And there's the thrill of maybe getting grilled on how you know the groom and possibly getting thrown out of the wedding.

It's interesting though, that a bride can spend years and all of her savings planning the perfect wedding, and then any old writer can invade the celebration and shamelessly blog about it.

Try it. Let me know how it goes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Constantime... that was going to be my name but at the last minute my parents decided on something a little less groovy. For dinner, did they have soy filet wrapped in soy bacon with a soy reduction?
Nice to hear some of the fun you were having while Oskar's screams of separation anxiety were literally peeling the paint off the walls at our house.
Were it not so noisy at the ole Fort, you might have heard him. I'm almost over my PTSD. Doctor says I should be able to return to a fully functional life some day.
Aw, just kidding, sounds like an awesome evening and actually it was pretty gutsy of you to crash not one but two weddings, and I'm glad you brought the little man over. He was great fun, and laughed lots when spraying us all with the squirt bottle. He really enjoyed my dinner and devoured a pile of other food that probably could have been the next night's dinner for four.
Anyway, wonder what HIS wedding will be like; assuming of course we'll be invited....

Anonymous said...

PS... yeah... uh, just a heads-up, if we're not invited, expect to see us show up sometime anyway. Hopefully, Oskar and ????'s wedding will be one of the many free booze fests at the Fort Garry, so that we'll be able to make a night of it. After all, Alys and I will both be pensioners by then.